Chapter 19

Dinner was agony. Benedict recalled waking that morning and feeling optimistic and wished he could travel back in time and kick that poor, clueless idiot in the head.

It had taken less than a day for his mother to be revealed as the sort that hired a criminal, his wife to become furious with him, and his mother to return weeks earlier than expected.

Just his bloody luck.

It bore mentioning, however, he noted over dinner as he wondered if gulping his wine would make his nascent headache better or worse, that his wife and his mother showed their displeasure in highly different ways.

"This cut of beef feels thinner than usual," his mother complained loudly, pushing the offending meat around her plate. She had not taken kindly to being told that she should leave the cook alone as managing the house was now Emily's role, not hers.

Never mind that she'd hated doing it when it was her role, Benedict had thought sourly as his mother had gasped and carried on, decrying the unspeakable pain (though she managed to speak it quite a lot, actually) of being replaced in one's child's affections.

"Has someone," the Dowager went on, cutting a poisonous glance at Emily, "decided we ought to change butchers? We should really return to the old. This cheap cut reeks of economizing."

"The cook informed me she has been using this butcher for several years," Emily said politely, her eyes on her own plate where she was eating her meal in careful, moderated bites. "I could not account for any difference, I'm afraid."

"The beef is fine, Mother," Benedict interjected, earning him a quick look of approval from his wife.

Emily had been the very picture of decorum through the first courses of dinner, treating each of his mother's preposterous complaints as though they were innocuous observations and replying with perfect gentility. In another circumstance, Benedict would have been beside himself with delight over how visibly it rankled his mother that Emily was apparently entirely immune to her histrionics.

But his bride was no more pleased with him, at this moment, than she was with his mother—and wasn't that unpleasant company to be in.

Emily had been polite to him as well, almost aggressively so. He'd waited to see that flash of temper that she'd yielded against him so many times before, but it never appeared. Instead, her cool demeanor struck him as…resigned.

He hated it. He might even, he allowed, hate it more than his mother's whining.

"It's supposedly the same butcher," Priscilla sniffed. "And we are just to believe words when our senses tell us something else entirely? I fear the great thinkers, in all their bothersome, plodding ways, would call us fools for even considering it."

"I assure you, My Lady," Emily replied with perfect equanimity, "I have no reason nor inclination to lie about the household's butcher."

He had to find a way to make Emily stop playing this horrid ‘perfect Society wife' role. If he had to watch her give one more bland smile, he was going to suffer an apoplexy. But how to get his Emily—the real Emily—to show her face again?

"Perhaps not," sniffed the Dowager. "But who among us can say that we always operate according to reason, hm? There is, in some of us, a perversity that encourages pursuing our own desires, no matter the consequences. Do you not agree, Miss Rutley?"

"I think you will find," Benedict growled, "that it's Lady Moore."

Priscilla ignored him, her gaze intent on Emily. As much as Benedict had disliked his mother ignoring his wife, he found he liked her attention upon Emily even less.

But Emily looked entirely unconcerned.

"Perhaps," she allows, "though I do endeavor to practice thinking in all my endeavors. I'm sure you understand, My Lady."

Though her tone was kind, Benedict almost smiled at the tiniest hint of sharpness in the words. Either his mother had to agree with Emily—which she clearly didn't want to do—or claim that she didn't understand the value of thinking. She was a tactical menace, his wife.

Still, it rankled that he was still receiving the cool, disaffected Emily as was evident when she turned to him and commented blandly, "The sauce is quite fine this evening, I think."

"Quite," he agreed stupidly.

Very well. She had not forgiven him. He thought back to their earlier conversation, the one that had just been dancing on the cusp of becoming a true argument when his mother had barged in. He stifled a wince as he ran back over the conversation. He had been a tad bit harsh with her. He simply hadn't expected her to be the type of woman to demand constant attendance at Society events.

His mind caught on his own phrasing. The type of woman. It took him back to Emily's earlier accusation, the one she'd made the night he'd first taken her to bed. Her claim that he had painted all women with the same brush as his mother.

He looked at the two women in front of him. There was his mother, petulantly refusing to touch her supper, her face twisted into a sneer. And then there was Emily, upset but not making those feelings a matter of public consumption.

His stomach lurched. Maybe his wife had been right. Maybe he was being a hypocrite. The thought rankled. He'd long prided himself on his fair-mindedness, on the fact that he, unlike his mother, was not a creature of hysterics and emotional manipulation. But he had to now allow, perhaps he had let his own emotions towards his mother have more effect than he'd realized.

Fuck. He was going to have to apologize to his wife.

Now was not the time, though. For one, he would like to make such an apology in private—both in concession to his pride and because he hoped his wife would thank him in a manner that demanded they be alone—but also because his mother was speaking loudly.

"I suppose, then," she said, her tone musing as though she was merely thinking aloud; the malicious glint in her eye said otherwise. "If you are such a thinking creature—a proper bluestocking—that this means you admit you were trying to trap my son into marriage when you seduced him in a hallway?"

Emily's mouth dropped open. Benedict surged to his feet.

"Get out," he said to his mother.

The smug look in Priscilla's face morphed into offended shock.

"Don't be ridiculous, Benedict," she said. "After all, what can admitting it hurt now? She's ensnared you in her little scheme; you are wed. At least, she can still claim a modicum of honor if she confesses."

"I didn't—" Emily stammered.

"No one thinks you did," Benedict interrupted his wife, forcing his tone to softness despite his anger. He could not bear to see her suffer the indignity of having to deny such a thing. "Not even she thinks you did," he said, cutting a glare at his mother. "She's merely stirring up trouble."

"Why, I never!" Priscilla exclaimed with a hand pressed to her throat. "It is a mother's duty to protect her child, Benedict!"

Benedict ignored her, keeping his eyes locked on his wife until she let out a small huff of air and nodded.

"I may not be perfect, Emily, but I shan't stand to hear you insulted. Do you understand?"

This time her nod was preceded by the smallest of smiles. It made him feel as though he could lift mountains.

He did not need, however, to do anything so dire as all that. He merely needed to rid their home of a particularly bothersome nuisance.

"Consider this your last warning, Mother," he said lowly.

"But she—" Priscilla began, pointing dramatically at Emily.

"No," Benedict interrupted. "No one—and especially not you, given your history, Mother—will cast aspersions against my wife's character, morals, or virtue. If anyone behaved improperly that evening, it was I, not she. And I struggle to call it impropriety from this perspective when I have been gifted such an excellent bride for my poor behavior."

He directed this last comment in Emily's direction, and her small smile grew bigger.

"I fear to think what it shall do for your character, My Lord, to earn rewards for your malfeasance," she teased quietly. He let out a wholehearted laugh at that, thrilled to see a hint of her playful side again.

"You're making a mistake, Benedict," Priscilla hissed.

Calmly, Benedict sat back down in his chair, spreading his napkin across his lap. "Perhaps I am, in giving you this last warning instead of throwing you out this very evening. I suppose we shall see."

In a great fluster of dignity, Priscilla got to her feet.

"I cannot eat in these circumstances," she huffed before storming out of the room. Emily and Benedict watched her go.

"Oh dear," Emily said tonelessly. "We seem to have lost our dinner companion. Whatever shall we do?"

He only had to grin at her for a few seconds before her affected composure disintegrated, helpless giggles overtaking her.

"I'm sorry," she said when she caught her breath. "I know she's your mother; I shouldn't be so disrespectful."

"Emily, darling," he drawled. "You couldn't have matched her for disrespect if you'd clobbered her over the head with a candelabra. Merely offering a dry comment or two is positively angelic of you."

Her lips twitched again. "Still," she said, looking at him with softness in her gaze. He had the foolish urge to sit up straighter. "Thank you for defending me."

"I will always defend you," he swore. Then he reached out and grasped her hand. "And I think I must admit that you were right."

Her eyebrows raised though her eyes continued to spark with good humor. "Uh oh," she said. "Don't injure yourself."

"Minx," he said, aiming a playful nip at the back of her knuckles. She giggled again and tried to pull her hand back, but he held on tight.

Sobering again, he said, "I feel grotesque admitting it, but you might have been correct that I…overgeneralized about the nature of women due to my mother's tendencies."

"Positively angelic," she murmured, recalling his earlier words about tepid retaliation.

"What I mean to say is," he said, needing to keep himself on task before her delightful playfulness distracted him. It had only been a few hours, but goodness, he'd missed it. Missed her. "I am sorry. I reacted extremely and unkindly when you requested my aid in chaperoning your sisters. I was wrong, and I apologize."

Her light demeanor vanished as she stared at him with wide eyes. "I—thank you, Benedict. That means a lot."

"I cannot promise to attend all the events that your, ah, rather spirited sisters might like to grace with their presence," he amended, his temples already starting to throb at the mere thought. Whoever had decided that the Season ought to run so long should be taken out back and shot in Benedict's opinion. It was merely too much.

Emily was looking at him with a knowing—and dare he say fond?—look.

"I understand completely," she said seriously.

"Balls are just so very crowded and loud," he said by way of explanation, knowing it came off more as complaint. "There are just such a great number of…people. Everywhere."

He suspected his wife might be trying not to laugh at him. "As a former wallflower, I am no stranger to your dislike of Society events."

"Good—wait, a former wallflower? Are gentlemen badgering you now? Who are they? Have they said anything untoward?"

Had his wife's concern about gossip damaging her sisters' prospects been a ruse? Was she being hurt by the chatter? He'd call out any man who made her feel unwelcome, just see if he didn't?—

"No, you impossible man," she laughed, cutting off his internal scheming. "I simply meant that one is not typically considered a ‘wallflower' after marriage though I suppose one could debate the point," she added musingly.

"You're certain?" he asked, eyeing her carefully. Perhaps he would have to start attending events if other men thought they could paw all over Benedict's wife.

"I am certain," she said indulgently. "Now stop being foolish and let me forgive you properly, shall you?"

As she reached out her arms to pull him into an embrace, Benedict couldn't help but reflect on the truth of his earlier words. In finding Emily he had been, after all, a very lucky man, indeed.